Spin Rhythm XD News

Welcome to Update 9.

It's taken a bit longer than we had hoped to deliver, but we wanted to do something that wasn't just a colourblind alternative skin for the game. We wanted a feature that anyone could have fun messing with.

On more of the accessibility front, we have added an option to enable a contrasting note style for one of the two main notes, and a corresponding higher-contrast wheel wedge.

Oh, and there's also three new free tracks, bringing our total to 36.

Thanks again for your patience, please read below to see the changes.



Three new free tracks brings our total to 36, and our second wave of accessibility features are detailed below.

FEATURES


• Three new tracks!
  - Colorblind by Panda Eyes - We just couldn’t resist adding this tune for our custom colours update. It’s loud, furious and full of energy.
  - Mimic by Droptek - This frantic, fast-paced beat will scratch your drum and bass itch while providing a good challenge for more experienced players.
  - Humanity by Max Brohn - Slow and simple, this addictive tune is a great place to start for those looking to get into the higher difficulties of Expert and XD.
  
  
• Accessibility update part 2!
  - Fully customisable note colours! Within the accessibility menu, hit the ‘Colors’ button and go nuts (each note type will have a Hue, Saturation and Lightness slider).
  - High contrast note option (one of the note types and its corresponding wheel wedge will stand out more).
  - Note beams, track lines and track speed are all able to be previewed in the options menu.
  
  
• Custom levels are now able to be separately ranked per difficulty up to a value of 99.
  
  
• A star icon has been added next to STREAK in the HUD. When the star is solid, it shows you are on a PFC run, and when hollow an FC run.
  

POLISH


• Some XD difficulty rating numbers have been adjusted based on Discord user feedback.
  
• I See Lite (XD) has been made far less annoying.
  
• Believe (XD) moved a single tap note in the sax solo, don’t worry, leaderboards should remain.
  
• Flight (XD) made slightly less annoying.
  
• Flight (Expert) made slightly less annoying.
  
• Checkpoint (XD) has been updated.
  
• VOLT (XD) has a minor tweak that reset the leaderboard (sorry!)
  
• ‘Level Complete’ SFX volume lowered by 20% (this is mapped to “voice” volume, so you can further lower it in audio options if required).
  
• Updated French translations (many thanks to Discord user Raoul).
  
• Updated Spanish translations (many thanks to Discord user g4).
  
• Options menu should have proper translations for 'Unlimited' and 'None' (frame limit / FXAA settings).
  
• New backgrounds for the three new tracks.
  
• Updated background for Highscore.
  
• Fixed artist name for Highscore (reversed the order to Teminite & Panda Eyes).
  
• Track speed override now shows values relative to default difficulty level speeds.
  
• Options menu sliders will now work when holding left / right on keyboard keys or gamepad.
  
• Dropdown menus now work with keyboard arrow controls.
  

BUG FIXES


• Friends leaderboard should no longer show three times with random rankings.
  
• Spectrum visualiser (on HUD) will now update to empty when there is no music playing.
  
• Scratch zone finisher particles (fireworks) should consistently spawn in the correct location.
  
• Pressing “cancel” while binding a mouse button will no longer bind left click.
  
• Leaderboards should regularly refresh with new player submissions.
  
• When completing a level and returning to level select, leaderboards should properly display.
  
• Streak / rank should no longer be broken on custom songs list.
  

Spin!

Hey Spinners,

Small hotfix that patches a few issues from our last update.



Fixes

• Defaults button has been added to accessibility options tab.
  
• Square particle should no longer hang around.
  
• Customs difficulty rating over 30 should be as visible as 20-30.
  
• Rank and streak should show correctly in level select first time.
  
• Inject (XD) has been reset as the top leaderboards score was 8 higher than possible.
  

Peace.

Welcome to Update 8.

When we set out to allow fully customisable note colours in SRXD, we thought we would be able to knock it over in a couple of weeks. This turned out to be way more challenging for us to pull off (while maintaining the stylistic and visual fidelity you've come to expect) than we'd hoped.

Instead of leaving you hanging for a few more weeks, we decided to release three new free tracks, and most of what we've achieved so far with our accessibility update featureset.

We will finish the fully customisable colours next update, and give you another 3 free tracks again (including the aptly named 'Colorblind' by Panda Eyes).

Thanks again for your patience, please read below to see the changes.



This update focuses on helping you focus while playing. It includes many long-time QOL updates people have been requesting, an overhaul of our difficulty rating system and more.

FEATURES
• Three new tracks!
  - Arcana Engine by Monomer - The epic opening track from his incredible synthwave chiptune album "Labyrinth".
  - VOLT by Modern Revolt - a heavy-hitting syncopated groove, and an NCS release that feels like it was made for SRXD.
  - Platform 9 by Oneeva - unique and super catchy, and another NCS release.
  - New backgrounds for each of these tracks
  
• Accessibility options!
  - Custom track speed override. This will apply to all tracks played while the override is in effect (also we will be adding markers in a future update to show default values).
  > 12 = easy
  > 14 = normal
  > 17 = Hard
  > 20 = Expert
  > 24 = XD
  > 40 = What are you doing?
  - Simple background override. This operates the same way as the custom track speed override. It also overrides the practice background, let us know if you think this should be the case.
  - Options to disable damage feedback, audio spectrum visualiser and camera shake.
  - Fully customisable beam length, intensity and track lines.
  > We will show the track on the left hand side in the next update so you can see your changes as you edit.
  
• Master volume slider in audio options tab (allowing note hit SFX to cut through a little more)
  

CHANGES
• Changed difficulty rating scale up to 30, adjusted difficulty ratings to reflect each difficulty
  - XD levels should now be properly ranked in terms of their actual difficulty.
  - Thanks to everyone who helped (especially Aren Eternal) with the difficulty feedback.
  

POLISH
• Lift-off notes have been updated to cut through beat geometry more (and generally stand out more).
  
• Tap notes have a fresh new look and should stand out slightly more.
  
• Release notes are visually clearer especially when stacked on top of beats.
  
• Custom tracks can now have their own per-track difficulty rating (this will be especially useful once difficulty sorting is in).
  
• Options menu has been overhauled and should look nicer in all languages.
  
• Removed a rogue beat and some wack notes in Robo Trio XD and Expert.
  
• Overhauled Checkpoint (XD) chart, super special thanks to MKNerd for feedback.
  
• Fixed Checkpoint (XD) phantom notes causing inconsistent spins (around 32s).
  
• Fixed dropdown selection (you can no longer have multiple open or issues closing).
  
• Metropole (XD and Expert) has had a once-over for precision.
  
• Adventures (XD) inconsistent beat holds have been fixed.
  
• Superimposed_RGB (Expert) cleaned up excessive lift off notes.
  
• Believe (XD) made the holds notes at the start (and the time it repeats) consistent in length.
  
• Navigating previous Daily challenge should be clearer.
  
• Dropdowns will now auto-scroll to selection.
  
• Dropdowns can only have one open at a time.
  
• Difficulty tabbing sound has been updated to be less jarring.
  
• Tutorial warning buttons actually make sense now.
  
• Level complete track art now looks more square (and floats slightly slower).
  
• Exiting a random track now returns to random song select.
  
• Options menu no longer pans freakishly quickly.
  

BUGS & FIXES
• Added protection from memory editing (allowing users to edit game speed).
  
• Players should no longer be able to submit a previous daily score when starting the challenge before the song ticks over to the next day’s challenge.
  
• Removed Visual C++ dependency on OGG Vorbis decoder library.
  
• Song failure timeline bugs should no longer occur.
  
• Missing a hold note release will now show red on stats and on the extended stats graph.
  
• Players experiencing DSP desync issues will now be notified via a small red icon.
  
• Fixed results screen animation issues.
  
• Custom levels with only two difficulties will now have slight spacing between the selection buttons.
  
• Pause menu button mappings on gamepad have been fixed.
  
• Scores over 100k should properly display now.
  
• Streak now counts up the same way as score.
  
• Popping sound at the end of levels should no longer occur.
  
• Superimposed_RGB typo has been fixed (you may need to rehook up custom levels that use this background).
  
• Peripheral RGB should apply immediately (no longer requiring restart).
  Turning off peripheral RGB should no longer prevent changes to Chroma settings.
  

Speeeeeeen!

Hey Spinners,

Small hotfix that patches a few issues from our last big update.

Fixes

• Stats screen will remember its last state (and will remain open if opened).
  
• Stats screen can now be closed.
  
• Beat holds + beats stacked on top of eachother will now register as an error flag in the editor.
  
• Fixed the phantom beat hold issue in Bubbles (XD) - added some notes to make up for it so the leaderboard didn't have to be reset.
  
• You can now place taps and holds (as well as taps + taps) on the same line of time. Also taps within holds.
  
• Pausing in the tutorial will now correctly display track art and track details.
  
• Numbers over 6 digits will now display properly on leaderboards.
  
• Leaderboard text alignment, spacing and sizing has been improved for all languages.
  
• Customs edit mode screen no longer highlights "manage" column options when play mode difficulties are selected and then the mode is changed.
  
• Buttons on pause menu (and results screen) now properly mapped for gamepads.
  
• Inject (XD) fixed a badly timed spin around 40s from the end.
  
• Updated the custom play menu 'charter' label to be more visible against the background
  

Peace.

Welcome to Update 7. This update started as a way to implement extended results screen stats and global leaderboards, as well as improve the quality of the level editor. Unfortunately the more bugs we crush the more we want to crush, so the list of changes got quite long and it's been about 3 weeks since our last patch.



Two of our team (Steve and Shath) have been busy developing the single player campaign mode, which is probably the biggest update we will have to ship before 1.0 is finalised.

This current update focuses on adding some long-requested features such as extended stats, global leaderboards and improvements to the editor and the way customs work in general.

NOTES


• Leaderboards have been reset due to a bug that allowed some players to score above the maximum possible score per level, and also slight changes to the scoring system detailed below.
  
• Developer roadmap has been updated.
• If you would like to set your own customs folder path, add a launch option (right click > properties > set launch options) to your Steam SRXD game link and use the code custom_path “C:\\Whatever\\Folder\\You\\Want” (note in this case your custom folder will be ‘\\Want’, the game will not create a ‘\\Custom’ subfolder below this).
  

FEATURES


• Added challenge menu (replaces “Daily” button).
  - Added global top leaderboard (score combined across all tracks submitted per-difficulty - Trumpel you should be relieved of your exemplary duty up until now).
  - Added placeholder for weekly challenge with mutators (coming soon)
  
• Added SpinFM stations with new station artwork for each difficulty.
  - All SpinFM stations contain only one difficulty to keep you in your comfort zone.
  - Added multiplier back into SpinFM.
  
• Added the ability to launch custom tracks externally. This works on either startup or during execution by passing in commands via Steam. File names are case sensitive. Extension is optional.
  - Note that for the suffix, difficulty 0 = Easy, difficulty 1 = Normal, ... , Difficulty 4 = XD
  
• Windows “Run”:
  - steam://run/1058830//play \\"My Custom Track.srtb\\" difficulty 2
  
• MacOS shell (observe quotes):
  - open "steam://run/1058830//play \\"My Custom Track.srtb\\" difficulty 2"
  
• Browsers: use URI
  - steam://run/1058830//play "My Custom Track.srtb" difficulty 2
  
• C/C++ code:
  - system("steam://run/1058830//play = \\"My Custom Track.srtb\\" difficulty 2");
  
• The game’s file structure has been simplified so that future small patches should typically be less than 100MB (instead of around 700MB they currently are).
  
• Added extended stats on the level complete screen (press the ‘Stats’ button to view).
  

POLISH


• Spin Cycle (Expert) removed some dodgy lift off notes at 55s and 42s to the end.
  
• BUBBLES (Expert) fixed one spin early on that was a tiny bit out.
  
• Never Count On Me (XD) had some polish.
  
• Robo Trio (XD) very minor polish.
  
• Velours (Expert, XD) had some polish.
  
• New Game (XD) beginning made slightly easier towards the end of the first section.
  
• Spins have a new visual (and their ending no longer blends with tap notes to create a coloured line, now their finish line should always be a white line like a tap note).
  
• Beat bars are more vibrant in colour (to contrast with the teal spins).
  
• Scratch zones have a new visual to better convey the action required.
  
• Performance graph on level complete now shows green bars for PFC sections, yellowish bars for suboptimal sections and red bars for sections with misses.
  
• Hit sounds will appear in the game world in stereo and based on their placement (left / right) on the track.
  
• Hit sound volume is now dynamic and is based on the volume of the level music at that time (hopefully they will no longer be drowned out in loud sections and too loud in quiet sections).
  
• There are now many more (9 total) in-game UI tips in the pause menu.
  
• Tutorial / Random track art now has text strings (for all languages) instead of only English cover art.
  
• Track info while playing (bottom left) is more nicely presented and should scale properly in wider resolutions.
  
• You can now access your player.log files (and report technical issues) from the options menu (bottom right).
  
• Results screen typography and layout has had a polish.
  
• Pause menu has had a visual polish.
  
• Practice mode buttons now have their own icon.
  
• The difficulty badge / ring has had a polish in all screens making the difficulty value of a level more clear.
  
• All text in all menus should now be clearer in all languages, and no longer have ugly overflow / wrapping issues (especially in German / Spanish) and should no longer appear tiny in size (Asian characters).
  
• Main menu now contains a link to our Twitter, and the Discord / Dev Roadmap links have a nicer look with icons and proper colours.
  
• SpinFM backgrounds have had the ugly text removed.
  

CUSTOMS / EDITOR


• Editor button is now labelled “Custom”.
  
• Clip editor heading should no longer overflow (Spanish / Korean).
  
• Custom tracks list in Edit / Play modes should now sort by track title, not SRTB title.
  
• Your charter field will show in Edit / Play mode menus, and also in the pause menu while playing a track.
  
• Placing tap notes and hold notes in the middle of an ending note will now end that hold note early (and automatically create an ending note behind the placed note).
  
• Placing hold notes around other hold/spin/scratch notes will no longer create duplicate end notes stacked nearly on top of eachother.
  
• Adding cue points in the clip editor can now be achieved with the mouse by hovering over the cue point area and clicking the + symbol.
  
• Selecting a cue point now gives you a detail panel with the name and time available to edit.
  
• Cue points can now be moved in the clip editor using click and drag.
  
• Selected cue points can now be deleted using the delete button on their info panel.
  
• In the track editor details panel, “Charter” field should now be correctly displayed in all languages.
  
• When creating a new level the clip editor is now the first thing you will see.
  
• In the note editor, hold notes show as invalid (red line) when they don’t have an ending note.
  
• Similarly, single end notes show as invalid when they aren’t connected to any valid hold/spin/scratch starting note.
  
• When placing hold notes before existing ending notes, duplicate ending notes will no longer be created.
  
• The game should remember and default to the last custom song you played when re-entering the menu.
  
• Placing notes in “recording mode” (while the song is playing) is far less laggy (and can pretty easily be quantised to near-perfect after recording).
  
• You can now import extremely long tracks (1hr+) with hopefully no issues.
  
• Fixed note placement slowdown when going past 30 minutes into a track.
  
• Fixed time signature snapping with denominators of 8 or higher - some songs might need their time signatures moved to be in the correct position again.
  
• “File is up to date” warning no longer stacks obnoxiously.
  
• Limited the amount you can zoom in and out in the editor to prevent a crash (~0.5ms - ~30mins).
  

BUG FIXES


• ‘151’ matches before spins should no longer force you to take damage (this was a bug where then a spin has been detected, it would fail the match note) - this one has caused a bit of heartache for those chasing PFCs in XD difficulty, so if it pops up again please let us know.
  
• Failing a scratch zone should now mean you can no longer achieve an FC.
  
• It should no longer matter which device you start a spin with after a tap (they should combine momentum properly - sorry Metalman).
  
• Completing the Hard tutorial will no longer spam CCCOOOOOOMMMPPPPLEEETTTEEEEE
  
• Fix some DSP issues where the notes on the track would occasionally move backwards.
  
• Old personal scores in the friends list should no longer occasionally remain when leaderboards are reset.
  
• Notifications with the same messages won’t spam anymore.
  
• SpinFM should properly trigger crowd sounds upon level completion.
  
• Fixed ranking - PFC now gives S+ rank.
  
• Fixed PFC/FC checks -- should show up properly in level select.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the game to crash on some processors when using the Track Editor.
  
• Fixed some issues that could arise when dragging items in the Clip Editor while using keyboard shortcuts.
  
• Fixed an issue where the audio could get out of sync when the audio device changed.
  
• Attempting to remove mouse acceleration on input - seemed to not work, but if it helps then that’s good.
  
• Ginger Lizard (Hard) now has a proper preview.
  
• Hard tutorial warning should no longer appear when attempting the Hard tutorial.
  
• Hard tutorial warning should no longer appear after already completing the Hard tutorial amd attempting a Hard level.
  
• The old flying fish beat particles should be defeated once and for all.
  
• Customs backups with multiple difficulties should no longer export multiple .OGG files.
  
• Burst compile compatibility should be improved (less crashing) on certain CPUs.
  
• Entering the main menu after bootup will no longer trigger a note hit sound.
  
• Note sounds should no longer stack when notes are stacked, the game will simply play the loudest single sound.
  
• Release notes should now properly calculate score across all combinations of notes stacked on top of themselves (this was causing players to achieve higher than possible scores).
  
• Beat Hold releases now display early / late.
  
• Beat Hold releases now add to your streak.
  
• Game should now ignore .ini and .xmp files in your customs audio folder (no more stacking error messages on launch).
  

Keep spinnin' and keep winnin'.